Even Ben is lagging behind. What has this super incestuous world come to?
Seven Minutes in Heaven
Grade: B+
This is a clever sketch on a simple premise. It takes on the concept of the “heaven” of 42 virgins by using the real life examples of virgins: Christians, Children, Lesbians, and mildly prudish college girls who are still living in our patriarchal paradigm which suggests that virginity is sacred for a woman. Therefore this “heaven” is really nothing like a heaven at all, but rather more like a hell. Get it? The premise is a little contrived and overused, but the writing is not. There are some amazing lines in this piece. Each character is fully realized and very different from each other. The absurdity of homemade tampons, the game canasta, and the super sleezy terrorist allow this sketch to become, not only original, but also very funny. Emma’s character is the only one that feels a little underwhelming. This is because the other characters are such absurd representations that the somewhat realistic counterpart is dull, especially because Emma talks in a very formal manner. This sketch is also very well paced. It doesn’t ever go stale, it moves from one joke to the next swiftly and seamlessly. Joe also could have mugged to the audience less after his original entrance.
This sketch is tightly and hilariously written with some inconsistency in the acting choices that stop the sketch from being the coherent piece it needed to be.
Best Actor: Cora’s Hair. Best Line: There are so many, but: “Ladies…There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.” and “What’s That?!” are my two favorite. I could watch Joe say “What’s That?!” over and over all day and I would still laugh. Too bad nobody in the audience laughed at that.
Next Entry: TheFastTrack
Nisse Greenberg 
Grade: A-
Unlike Nisse, I think this sketch is conceptually brilliant, but not that well executed. It seems more “prime-time sketch comedy” than most of our stuff: a tight little twist of a punch line, which should have been written a million times by 2007 when it was performed, but hadn’t been (to my knowledge). The dialogue before the big reveal isn’t quite as tight as I remember it, and the end of the sketch drags for a few seconds too long in order to conclude with a throw-away second joke (Mormonism! ha!). Nonetheless, I think that the concept is obvious, yet brilliant, enough to carry the sketch. It’s funny. The acting is great, although I wish we had gotten Lara and Hannah into more hammed-up costumes.
Watchability: 1.
Once you get the joke, it’s not really that much fun to replay.